Just wasted lots of my time checking out various movies on IMDB. Decided I really want to check out Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride- Four Weddings and a Funeral doesn't sound that interesting, unfortunately. From reading the plot it's extremely complicated. This guy likes a girl, but goes through three weddings and a funeral before they come to the fourth one and he tells her he likes her. Or something like that.

Am determined to write my Damien-Jaime story but am unsure if I am fit to write something that should involve more action than I'm accustomed to writing. Everyone knows JK Rowling makes it look so easy- if I could only play the images in my head to someone who could put it to paper it'll be great. Somehow I always imagine my stories in my head as a film before writing -or trying to write. Then again maybe it's because most of these stories come from dreams, like this very one.

The plot is rather simple but there are some parts that I haven't worked out yet. I've also only come up with names for 3 characters, out of the myriad of people that the book will involve. Basically, the plot is:

Jaime Somerville is a kind-hearted heiress, who would rather read thanattend the many parties in which her mother tries to set her up with variouseligible bachelors. On her twentieth birthday, a huge, ostentatious party isthrown at the Somervilles' mansion, where Jaime is expected to announce to allpresent which man she has decided to marry. Overwhelmed by the pressure, as wellas her unwillingness to marry any of them at all, Jaime tries to delay butfinally agrees to follow the parlour maid downstairs.

At the landing she hears a strange noise from her late aunt's bedroom.Jaime hurries to see what might be in the room, ignoring the maid's protests.However, in the room, Jaime discovers a gang lying in wait for her. The gangmembers take her, while a lookalike takes Jaime's place and enters the party,poised and ready- but not quite grasping Jaime's personality. Her father noticesthat she is slightly different, but passes it off as nervousness.

Meanwhile, the gang members smuggle the real Jaime Somerville out of thehouse, where she is blindfolded, gagged and brought to an abandoned house far,far away. She is dumped and left to die; however, unexpectedly, Jaime manages toescape. She wants her life back and is determined to get back, so she starts thejourney back on foot. On the way, when she comes through a small village, shestumbles upon a Rectory, and decides to ask if she can have some food and aplace to sleep for the night.

At the Rectory she gets more than what she asks for: Father Jude, anold, kindly Roman Catholic priest and his "gang" of boys. His "gang" includefive orphan delinquents that Father Jude looks after, and Damien, the son ofFather Jude's best friend, who had passed away abruptly. Jaime quite likes the"family" and decides to stay for a while- after all, life with the priest andhis boys seems pretty fine. She decides to tell them that she is DanielleStrong, an orphan whose relatives didn't want her.

All that changes when she comes across a newspaper article saying that theSomerville mansion will pass to her, Jaime Somerville, as the Somervillepatriach is rumoured to be in bad health. However, Jaime knows that the gangwill get hold of it- and she gets a sickly feeling that they might be doingsomething to her beloved parents. She is anxious to be off, and tells the familythat she has to leave soon.

That night, in a drunken stupor at the local pub, one of the delinquentsannounces to everyone that Danielle (now relatively well-known in the village)had decided to depart after reading an article on the Somervilles. Unfortunatelyfor them, one of the gang members who had helped kidnap the real Jaime ispresent and he tips off the rest of the gang. Together, they go to the Rectory,intending to take her away once again and silence her once and for all. Notknowing what is happening, the boys put up a good fight, and Damien manages tobring Jaime away in the midst of the ruckus, still believing her to be Danielle,an innocent orphan.

He brings her to a rundown village far, far away and reveals that it ishere that he grew up as a boy before his father died. He says that Father Judehad sold most of the furniture in the bedrooms to get money to raise him, butthat the house should serve them well while they waited for a chance to get backto the Rectory. Jaime asks why he bothered bringing her away and Damien tellsher he wanted to protect her from the gangsters. They then head up to thebedroom where Damien is surprised to see everything intact. Father Jude hadlied, and kept the furniture because he knew how much it all meant to Damien.

Damien is about to confess his feelings for Jaime and she knows it. Shethen tells him the truth: that she is Jaime Somerville and she is the reason theRectory was targeted. She tells him to leave at once to save his life fromdanger. He leaves in shock and anger that she lied to him all along. Jaime fallsasleep crying.

When Damien is on his way back he realizes what he is doing: he isleaving the girl he loves in even more danger. If she was Danielle it might bealright: but she was Jaime, she was being hunted, she was wanted by a verydangerous gang- and for that reason, sick with himself, Damien starts to runback, anxious that something might have happened to Jaime while he was gone. Healso remembers what his late father had told him: never to run away from hisdreams. Damien realizes that Jaime is his dream.

When he comes back he cannot get in, for he had barricaded the doorhimself; he pushes against the door valiantly in an effort to get to Jaime.Meanwhile, Jaime hears him, but thinks it an intruder; she grabs the coat standthat is barricading the doorway and stands ready to fight. When she sees it isDamien she doesn't believe it. Damien apologizes and tells her that he lovesher. They have a teary reunion.

---That's the only bits I've managed to work out, but in the end Jaime and Damien defeat the gang -maybe with the delinquents' help- and get the mansion back. Jaime's mother is fine, but her father has been beaten by the gang, and his health is slowly weakening. He eventually dies at the end of the story but Jaime and Damien end up together :D

Yes, very typical, very Prince&Pauper-meets........romance. Well. AND I SPENT VERY LONG TYPING THAT ALL OUT FOR YOU :D